One day, the sky may fall (or, at least, the car may crash)

I don't know what it is about me, but things in the sky have always held a fascination for me. Today, I found myself admiring some unusual cloud formations on the way home.

I'm not the type to say, "hey, that looks like a dragon." No, I like to try to remember which is cirrus and which is cumulus, and so on. I also wonder about what is causing the strange clouds when I see clearly different types interacting. Today, I suppose the collision of a front and some tropical air was causing it. I'd like to say I can actually tell this by looking, but I cheated--the weather forecast helped! :)

I did consider meteorology as a career (along with a number of other careers I considered to one extent or another). I even took a course when I was an undergrad at Johns Hopkins. I'm not sure if it was the headache from studying fluid dynamics that dissuaded me from pursuing this line of work, but it still holds at least a passing interest. Actually, any of the many amazing forces of nature have the ability to fascinate me.

On the other hand, man-made things in the sky can get my attention, too. When I worked in Brooklyn, my commute took me right alongside JFK airport. When the winds were right, the flight path of landing jets went right over the Belt Parking Lot (officially called the "Belt Parkway", but who are they kidding?).

So, on good days, I could open my car's sunroof and watch as 747s and other large jets went right over, a mere 3 inches above my car (okay, it may have been a little more than 3 inches, but it didn't seem like much more!). The roar of the engines was such a rush.

The ultimate was one special morning when my timing was just right. I'd seen this particular plane takeoff and land many times, but this time it came right over the car. I was in heaven. As far as I'm concerned, this particular plane, The Concorde, was one of the prettiest planes I'd ever seen. In flight, it looked like a bird of prey. As it passed over the car that morning, the roar of its engines drowned out every other sound. Beautiful!

So how have I spent all these years looking up and never crashed? Dunno. I suppose I'm careful enough to leave plenty of space between myself and other cars, but maybe, just maybe, someone is looking out for this overgrown kid whose eyes still stray to the heavens in fascination for what's up there.